Too happy to be on the airport as you wait to board the flight to home, definitely time to go home

Seven tell tale signs you are ready to go home

You planned to travel long term but wonder if you are ready to go home midway. Here is how you know:

  1. Nothing anywhere is as good as how it is at home – This food, these people, these streets, this traffic! Ugh! Unbearable! Nothing is good enough and nothing is how it should be. And when you have started to miss the traffic jams, the noisy crowds, the garbage on the streets and people pissing and spitting on the roadside, you better book your tickets because you are definitely ready to go home.
  2. Looking for non action – The idea of a quiet evening in a hotel room is better than going around the world and finding new and exciting things to do. “Let’s go to the khao san road, party and get some food on the streets of Bangkok, it is our last night in South East Asia,” we thought.  “No, let’s just find a quiet resort close to the airport and sleep early for we are going home tomorrow!”
  3. Counting your meals – You have booked your ticket to home and you are looking at the last meal before you fly out and you declare it the last phad thai you eat before you go home. But, even though it is only now you accept it but you have been doing this for a long time. You have counted the 10th last phad thai, the ninth last one and the one after that. In fact, you are also counting the exact number of hours it will take you to get home to keep a track of just how much time there is left before you can eat something your mother cooked for you.
  4. Check in was never such a happy time – You stand in the queue of the low cost airline that flies home. Other compatriots are lined up as well. This is the first time you saw so many of the special 1.2 billion together in months.  You look at them fondly and tell Vikram, “dekho Bharatwaasi, kitne achche lag rahe hain!” (literal translation: look, the people from the land of Bharat, how beautiful they are!)
  5. Receiving your Boarding pass is quiet an emotional moment – No, not even standing at the top of Eiffel Tower or walking through the alps in Switzerland or taking a tour of Colosseum compares to this moment now when you stand in front of the departure gate with your boarding pass in hand.
  6. The Namaste Syndrome – You look at every Indian that crosses your way and look at them with a smile and stare at them till they look at you and then join your hands and say Namaste uncle, Namaste aunty. You have never felt such a deep connection with a stranger before simply because they are from the same country as you. And then you understand what it means to be an Indian.
  7. Unrecognizable surge of patriotism – You are singing “Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle, ugle here moti,” (literal translation: oh the glorious land of my country, on your bosom grow diamonds and pearls) even though you had realised that this song doesn’t make sense after all because there are more productive farm lands in the world.  Then you move over to,”Jab zero diya mere bharat ne, mere bharat ne” and then there is a lump in your throat. No don’t cry!”

I wanted this to be funny one, a narration of how awkwardly I kept smiling all day today and jumping around the Suarnabhumi airport and laughing at silliest jokes. But as I finish writing this on board the flight 6E42 to New Delhi, the truth is there are tears in my eyes. I have waited so long to go home. Yes, now, I go home!

About Empty Ruck Sack

Empty Rucksack travelers is an attempt to bring together many wonderful stories of career breaks, long term vacations and great travel destinations together at one place. The posts authored by Empty Rucksack Travelers are put together by Vikram and Ishwinder, an Indian couple out on a long term travel to find that perfect place in the world where they may want to stay forever.

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2 comments

  1. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, huh? 🙂

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